Universum opens video archive

Classic fights now on the Internet

After more than 292 events and 2,144 fights (of which 262 are world championship fights) Universum Box-Promotion has become the first major promoter to open their video archives to all boxing fans. The company has struck a partnership with YouTube for a special video channel that will feature the best fights from the 26 years of the German promotional powerhouse. Already online at www.youtube.com/UBPboxing are full length world championship fights of the past Universum champions Dariusz Michalczewski, Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, Artur Grigorian and Regina Halmich. In addition, complete recent fights from current world champions like Jürgen Brähmer, Sebastian Zbik, Vitali Tajbert, Dimitri Sartison, Susi Kentikian and Marcos Rene Maidana can be enjoyed.

“We’ve opened our treasure chest for everyone,” said promoter Klaus-Peter Kohl. “There will be something for every boxing fan. There are the great Tiger (Dariusz Michalczewski) fights, fights of the Klitschko brothers, King Arthur Grigorian, Regina Halmich, and many other champions. We’re currently digitizing our fight library and making it available to the fans all over the whole world. This is nowhere better for this than YouTube. We’re very excited about this new partnership. We have cabinets full of archive material. Now any boxing fan can again sit at ringside, only now he can also press pause and rewind. A real treat for me are the matches from our first event on February 24th, 1984. Check it out!”

“Sport is a very important and popular category for the more than 300 million YouTube users,” said Andreas Briese, Strategic Partnership Development Manager at YouTube. “With the Universum Channel, they can now once again enjoy an up close experience with the highlights from a quarter century of boxing at any time just by clicking.”

With the new year, Universum has embraced social networks like Facebook, Twitter and the new YouTube channel creating a contantly growing fan community on the Internet.

Universum Vice-President Dietmar Poszwa stated “We soon want fans to take a vote in the Universum Classics series on YouTube to pick the next fight which will appear. I think this is a great thing. We’ll follow the developments and extend our brand into the social networking universe. The first response we’ve received from the fans is very positive.”

Overall, in the 25 years of Universum, the company has produced 37 world champions. In the coming years, the aim is to make available to the fans all of the fights featuring world champions Universum has the rights for, although it will be a while before the complete archive can be digitized and added to Universum’s YouTube channel.

Universum is also presenting all the current matches from the “Universum Champions Night” events in full length. This coming Sunday morning, all the fights from the world title twinbill from the Hamburg Sporthalle will be available online, including bouts not seen on ZDF.

“This is a unique service for the fans,” said Poszwa. “We’ve seen from the videos of the preliminaries from Magdeburg how big the interest is in our athletes from all over the world. On Sunday, they can see fights from Germany’s amateur champion Jack Culcay and Olympic champion Rakhim Tschachkijew in full length on YouTube, which television will only show brief highlights of or possibly even nothing at all.

Apart from the “Classics” and current fights, videos shot at the famous Universum Gym, public workouts and official weigh-ins can also be viewed. Visit the Universum Boxing Channel on YouTube at www.youtube.com/UBPboxing